


Love and War

by stuckonyou



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: AU, F/F, Piper is Love, Reyna is War, They're both spirits that control/influence love and war in the world, They're the literal personification/embodiment of their respective elements, strangers to friends to lovers to enemies to exes/strangers to friends to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-07-04 06:10:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15835362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuckonyou/pseuds/stuckonyou
Summary: Love and War walk into a bar. Piper and Reyna sit down.





	Love and War

Love and war walk into a bar. Piper and Reyna sit down.

This is a sort of ritual for them. Once a week, every week, they meet for a drink. They were once friends, then they were lovers, then they were enemies. For a while they were nothing. Now they are almost friends again. With enough time, they realized that though they cannot live without each other, they can be nothing more.

Neither are what you would expect. Piper is love. She is the deceit, the darkness, the manipulation, the risks, the tragedies, the chaos so rarely associated with love. In Romeo and Juliet, she is the poison and she is the dagger, she is the plague that kept them apart. She is not kind, she is not sweet, she is not soft. She is death, hidden in plain sight.

Reyna is war. She is the strategy, the planning, the lies, the risks, the casualties, the order so often unnoticed. She is the general, and she is the soldier. She is everywhere, seen by all, but she is nowhere, constantly ignored, hidden, overlooked. She is not violence, she is not chaos, she is not impulsive. She is peace, death, and all of its consequences.

They were too similar. It was often love that lead to war. This, they always understood. The two coexisted for so long, never making an effort to work together. To help each other. Then one day, they did. For Piper to exist, love can never die. For Reyna, it is the same, only with war. Love endures, always, in some way, but wars end. Whether they are internal or external, between few or between billions, every war must end eventually. If, even for a second, they all ended simultaneously, she would cease to exist.

They met by accident. Both were tired and lonely, sitting exactly where they were now in that bar. They recognized each other. Of course, that kind of raw power is hard to miss, but it but it was more than that. They were both scared. Their friendship began hesitantly, both afraid of trusting the other. Once they did, though, everything changed. Love and war both changed throughout the universe. Love became more strategic, colder, more rigid. War became more passionate, more chaotic than ever. This escalated as they became closer.

They fell in love. How could they not? Two spirits of immense power, so similar, able to influence the other, it was destined. All good things though, must come to an end. It started easily enough. They would meet once a week, every week, for a drink. Then they started meeting for dinner. During the day. In the middle of the night. Whenever the hell they wanted. They reigned together for years. Love throughout the world caused more wars. Those wars created more of a reason to love. The relationship was almost symbiotic. But soon, neither was in control of their elements. They had sacrificed that control for each other.

Things changed, as they always must. The lies, the deceit, the manipulation began. Not intentionally, of course, but both grew tired of losing what they had for so long. They began to resent each other, to blame each other for the lack of control over what controlled their lives, for so thoroughly changing their own elements, even though that had willingly let this happen. They made the choice to be together, knowing that the consequences were utter chaos, within their elements, and subsequently the rest of the world. Love grew rigid. It lost all of its passion, its emotion, everything that truly made it love. War became chaotic, lost the order and the strategy that it had preserved for so long.

They were in love with each other, but at war with themselves. Soon, they were at war with each other. They used their own strengths in any way they could. Piper manipulated emotions, causing love between opposite sides of armies, giving people the ability to love themselves, to stop their own internal wars. She brought out the internal goodness within every individual person, created a world where peace could realistically be achieved.

Reyna did her best to counter this. Her wars became more intense, more rigid. Strategies were improved, made to be more deadly, more threatening, more efficient. So much love was destroyed. She brought out the worst in people. They began to hate themselves, become at war with themselves, shocked by the horrible things they could do. They began to resent each other. People fell out of love, fighting over little things, creating their own personal war.  
With the two of them working so hard to destroy each other, there should have been balance. The two were about equal in power, and because of this, there was. But for a moment, just for a second, Piper hesitated. Outwardly, she was the bad parts of love. The misunderstanding, the chaos of emotions. She was internally as well. But, despite that, she was sill the ‘good’ parts. The compassion, the empathy, the simplicity of emotions. Her compassion would have been her downfall. In that second, she hesitated. Because in her own way, despite the arguments, all the fights, the chaos they created together, she still loved Reyna. So she hesitated.

That second, it nearly destroyed love in the world. It nearly destroyed her. It was not what either of them had expected. She and Reyna both knew that war could be more easily stopped, that it was easier to create peace than to destroy love. Though they never really thought about it, both knew deep down that Reyna should have been the first to die. She should’ve lost. But Piper hesitated. And then, surprising them both, Reyna did too. She loved Piper more than anything and despite their struggles, did not want to be responsible for her death.

With time, the world went back to normal. The two of them stopped speaking. They stopped meeting for their weekly drink. They coexisted, as they did before, silently. They both knew that anything else could so easily destroy them. For so long, they were alone again. Both wanted to reach out, but they had an agreement, almost, to stay apart. Until one day, they didn’t.

Whether they forgot and went their out of habit, or they made the choice consciously, they went back to that bar on a friday night, at the same time they’d always meet. They sat down, they talked, they drank, as if nothing had happened.

They built a new relationship, slowly, hesitantly. Eventually, they opened up to each other again. They trusted each other again. They talked about their fights, what caused them, how it affected them. They were almost friends again. Then suddenly, they were. Their conversations became lighter, easier. They had already discussed anything important, but somehow, they never ran out of things to say. Whether it was funny stories, or predictions of what was to come, they were happy again. Soon, those meetings are what they look forward to most. Reyna, as she plans her battles, is thinking of Piper, of how she can spin it into a funny story. Piper, as she lets people fall in love, is thinking of Reyna, of any way she can make her smile.

They begin to fall in love again. Both are more careful about it. They try not to let it consume them the way it did last time. They try to remain conscious of the consequences. Reyna puts more effort into keeping order in battle, and Piper makes sure to allow love to remain passionate. They fix their mistakes, they prevent it from happening again. They talk about this at the bar. Still, they meet only once a week, every friday, every week. No matter what. This time, though, is different. They can both feel it.

They sit down across from each other, at that same table in the corner.

“What’s wrong? You feel off today,” Piper says after a few minutes.

“Nothing, I think I’m fine,” Reyna responds.

“Sure you haven’t fallen in love with someone new?” she jokes

“No,” she responds. “Not someone new.”

“So you are in love?” Piper asks.

“You know,” Reyna says softly, putting her hand on Piper’s knee. “For the literal embodiment of love, you can be a bit dense sometimes.”

Piper touches Reyna’s hand and leans forward.

“That’s just what I want you to think,” she whispers. For a second, she doubts herself. She isn’t sure if this is right. But she doesn’t care. She would go through all of that again, over and over again, if it just meant that she and Reyna could be happy again, even just for a moment. Looking into Reyna’s eyes, she knows that she feels the same. Regardless of the consequences, they will always find their way back to each other.

They lean in and when their lips touch, everything around them explodes into colour. They both see the world as they should, as they used to. It was as if they had forgotten the beauty they were constantly surrounded by, as if they had found it again just by finding their way back to each other.

Every week they leave alone. This time they don’t. They leave the bar, hand in hand, happy, their minds full of possibilities. They go home together for the first time in so long, and it feels as if they were young lovers for the first time again, as if nothing has changed from the first time they left together.

Love and war walk into a bar. Just this once, Piper and Reyna walk out.


End file.
